[moosey]

Soon "tell us what to think" will be so subversive that most people might not have any way to combat it. Experiments have shown that leading questions can create memories where none previously existed, and how fragile and inaccurate our memories are. I don't know if that makes times interesting or terrifying.

It's come to the point where I seriously toy with handing off most of my decision making process to statistics. Mathematics has derived an algorithm for a lot of real world decision making that is superior to what the vast majority of humans can do, and I'm not sure which group I'm in: the ones that make really poor emotional decisions (although "luck" and emotions are tied together, according to more research I've read; luck might just be a way of thinking), or if I'm able to make well informed decisions based on data.

[opportune]

Unless you are directly plumbing the depths of data and doing computations, I worry using “statistics” to make decisions will just bias your thinking in subtler ways: towards what you’re already aware of, estimates that could be faulty, information availability bias. Except in some ways it’s more dangerous because it carries the veneer of mathematical correctness

[inimino]

Statistics based on what? Almost all statistics you can collect will be based on what other people do, so there's no escaping that bias. You're better off thinking for yourself, and being cautious about making any decision that affects your future.